A Thousand Hills

Koen Peeters

‘A Thousand Hills’ is a rich book, written with highly imaginative touch, that reveals the beauty and the tragedy of the land of a thousand hills. It steers a course between novel, history, anthropological study, and news report. Koen Peeters tells five stories that flow into each other and in which Louis, a Belgian boy, and Alexis Kagame, a Rwandan Tutsi priest, are the main characters.

Louis is an ordinary Belgian boy. But three baskets from Rwanda, bought by his father, magically influence his dreams. While dreaming he absorbs the language, the legends and the history of Rwanda. For years he cherishes these dreams until one day they become reality. As an adult, Louis becomes acquainted with Rwandan refugees. With one of them, he travels to Rwanda and follows him on his search for justice.

A complex but extremely clear and compelling novel

De Morgen

Without judging and without professing to postulate an absolute truth, Peeters searches for the how and why of the genocide and sheds light on how Rwandans cope with it today. The author creates a universe in which real people with all their ambiguities are present.

‘A Thousand Hills’ is a provocative novel and has the power to fuel discussions that still take place about Rwanda internationally.

What Van Reybrouck did with the Congo is what Peeters has done in ‘A Thousand Hills’ with neighbouring country Rwanda

NRC Handelsblad

An informative book, which tells us as much about ourselves as about Rwanda ****